Documentary segments include traditional talking-head clips from musicians, writers, and social critics, as well as archival video footage and photographs.
Described as "A truly masterful film essay about Black aesthetics that traces the deployments of science fiction within pan-African culture",[1] it has also been called "one of the most influential video-essays of the 1990s, influencing filmmakers and inspiring conferences, novels and exhibitions".
The film uses concepts based on George Clinton's Mothership Connection and features interviews with Clinton, Derrick May, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Nichelle Nichols, Juan Atkins, DJ Spooky, Goldie, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Bernard Harris, Kodwo Eshun, Carl Craig, and A Guy Called Gerald to explore the link between black music as a way of exploring the future.
[3] The film makes mention of Sun Ra, whose work centres on the return of blacks to outer space in his own Mothership.
Through the persona of a time-traveling nomadic figure known as the Data Thief, The Last Angel of History created a network of links between music, space, futurology, and diaspora.